A Poem by Claudia Daventry

Belisha

A half-cleared table, glow of plates
in dishwater that blinks soft orange light
through slats, in from the darkened street.

Upstairs your hair ignites against the pillow
in the chiaroscuro of your room: you sleep,
tinting and untinting amber, not a care:

your shoulders glow and don’t and glow
in semi-dark. The beacon signalling
its love for every last pedestrian out there,

a monument to anyone who crossed
the road – or anything, or anyone –
warning trucks of sand or stones to stop

and cede priority. To care. Down here,
a woman hugs her coat about her: steps
onto the barcode, walks across, away.

Claudia Daventry is a European who IRL lives and writes in Scotland. Her work has won various awards and commendations and her poems, essays, and libretti have appeared in the UK and beyond.